Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Start Journaling
When you start journaling, you likely will start out like most other people. You will write down your day and what happened during your day. Over time though, this type of journaling may lead you to lose your motivation.
In fact, most people find that writing diary-style entries are either too boring or do not keep their attention for the long term. Instead, you can start answering questions.
This is especially helpful when you are starting your journal and working towards a goal.
Why Am I Journaling?
The question of why you are journaling should be the first question you ask yourself. This can splinter off into various different questions, but answering the initial one is vital.
You should know why you are journaling, what your goal is, and what you want to get out of it.
Remember, be honest to yourself during this and don’t worry if you have more than one reason. List all the reasons and let the ideas and entry flow.
What Am I Looking For in My Journal?
What you are looking for in the journal deals with what you want to find when you review your entries.
This may mean you are looking for patterns that lead to your depression, anxiety, or things that may be derailing you in your daily life.
Or maybe you are looking for people or triggers in your life that are causing negativity.
Not every entry is about resolving negative patterns.
You could be journaling to achieve peak happiness, accomplish your professional goals or lose weight.
Whatever it is write it out.
Who Will See the Journal?
Sometimes your journal is just for you. There are other times when your journal may be online for others to see.
You need to know who you plan on allowing to read your journal and comment on it. This may lead to what entries you allow to be public or read versus the ones that are strictly yours.
This will also help you weigh the pros and cons of sharing the journal.
Why Did you Choose this Particular Type of Journal?
The type of journal you choose to use says something about the type of journaling you want to focus on.
For example, if you choose a devotional journal then that says you are trying to make a spiritual connection or even improvement.
A weight loss journal, as another example, shows you are working on your fitness goals.
The idea of asking these four questions is to lead you to more questions and expanding your experiences. In fact, you may start out with your goal and a path and find through answering these questions that your goal or path has changed. That’s okay.
Keep an open mind and work through the questions at your own pace.
One last thing – keep asking yourself more questions as they come up and think about the answers to those questions.
